Developing a home practice is a key element in the advancement of any serious yoga practitioner. This is a time that you set aside for developing your relationship to all that is YOU: body, mind and spirit. It is a sacred period of renewal. When we commit to a home practice on a daily basis our lives begin to blossom in unimaginable ways. Get ready for the ride of your life!

When developing a home yoga practice I ask the following questions:

• How much time do I have to practice? Many of us start out with great enthusiasm and often bite off more than we can chew when juggling busy lives. Make sure the time you choose is realistic and something you can sustain over time.
• What time of day works best? Traditionally we practice yoga first thing in the morning, before the busyness of the day takes over and our energy is pulled ‘outward.' Destiny, we get up, we set our energy for the day and attract circumstances that reflect the energy we have taken time to cultivate

If the...

Creating a positive relationship with our inner self is a lifelong adventure. Learning how to meditate has been the key to my own personal success and expansion. I recently wrote this piece on my personal inner process so I share it in the hope that it can inspire others to keep up the investigation into what it means to be human, why we make the decisions we make, how to become a more loving and connected person…

In the last year, I have deepened my practice, spending a couple of hours in meditation most mornings, and digging into who I am, what makes me tick, observing all the subtle way I am mis-identifying myself with thoughts, watching the contracting energy of stress and how it works on my body and thoughts. Seeing more clearly the subtle ways I check out of presence and invest my precious life-force in the vast collective unconscious.

Then there is the experience of feeling blooms of pure bliss when I access deeper levels of mind, allowing myself to linger in a place...

I have been having conversations with many friends lately. We have been sharing our reflections of these current times, the pain of seeing the division between many of us human beings getting wider, the challenges associated with the ongoing pandemic, the continued relevance of the Black Lives Matter movement and our hopes for the future.

I recognize that there is a conflict between people, many of whom actually share the same values and care for the world and each other. The polarization of ideas and beliefs strengthens our idea of separation, this is turn brings isolation, anger, fear, etc.

I know in my heart that the solution lies in all of us learning to transmute/transcend our own pain and suffering and supporting those around us to do the same. It lies in practices that can lift our frequency and establish a heart connection, so that the confusion and unconsciousness that drive the momentum of our lives can be paused long enough for us to remember who we are, and what really...

There is so much to be said for how we wake up and how we go to sleep. This precious time can be the most powerful of the entire day. Upon awakening, there is a newness, a sense of opportunity, of new beginnings that we can access so long as we do not rush to pick up the stress or agitation we were running with the day before. At the end of the day, if we take time to clear our mind and emotions we will get to sleep more easily and rise with a clearer mind.

Waking Up Consciously

One of my teachers told me something that stays with me to this day. He said, “as soon as you wake up, get up.” The sleep we get after we hit the snooze button can often make us more foggy and tired. If we get up right away, we can use the time to connect inwardly, before the duties of the day pull us into action.

When you first wake up, you are relaxed, your brain has been operating at the theta and delta brainwave states during sleep, which linger as you wake up. If you pay attention at this...

At any given moment we are influenced by so many things. Our senses are reporting in about our environment. Our mind is busy with some agenda whether conscious or unconscious. Our experience is being colored by whatever dominant emotions we feel, and somewhere in the midst of all this is our center, the still point around which everything else is turning.

PHYSICAL CENTER – In the Yoga Tradition, when you are standing upright, your physical center is considered the navel, typically described as around 1-2 inches below the belly button. This is your gravitational center. Gravity pulls mass downwards. When we are balanced and connected to our navel point it allows us to ground through the legs (with gravity) and lift through the spine and torso (resist gravity). When we are aware of and connected to our center of gravity, there is a natural balancing of the body, which in turn brings a feeling of ease, stability, and connection.

MENTAL CENTER – The mind...

Pain and fear can be great motivators. Think about the last time you had physical pain, enough that you had to stop your regular routine and tend to it. When we are in the grips of real physical pain the ONLY course of action we can take, is to make it stop by whatever means possible. To find the cause and treat it. Physical pain is by its nature all-consuming and requires a focused approach.

Emotional pain is a little more tricky. It is powerful enough to color our experience, including how we perceive ourselves and others, and how we are responding to people and situations. Untended emotional pain festers and creates emotional infection, the kind that eats at us from the inside out.

Picture yourself having a tiff with a loved one in the morning. It is left unresolved. You marinade in it all day, perhaps for a month. The situation gets a bigger and bigger charge. To distract yourself from your own self-inflicted misery you go out drinking with friends, or you shut down emotionally,...

Anger expressed in a non harmful way can be cathartic or positively fuel forward momentum.

Anger expressed harmfully leads to guilt and shame which perpetuates the causes of anger.

Anger unexpressed is the slow poison that eats one from the inside.

If we dig deeply enough there is anger and resentment at the core of many of our struggles.

One of the deeper sources of anger or rage is when our boundaries have been transgressed. We hold resentment toward the perpetrator for overstepping, and toward ourselves for not holding the boundary. We build stories around our anger to justify it. We vilify those who are perceived as antagonists.

As long as we point the finger outward we are missing the greater opportunity of self healing.

It’s tough when you are dealing with anger as you have to be willing to feel it, to for example dump all the yucky judgements and rage filled thoughts onto a paper, and keep going until you get to the core wound.

Now you work on self forgiveness and over...